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Traditional fecal indicators currently used to monitor these beaches were not associated with health risks. These results suggest a need for alternative indicators of water quality where nonpoint sources are dominant fecal contributors.

Wastewater surveillance for pathogens using reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) is an effective and resource-efficient tool for gathering additional community-level public health information, including the incidence of coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19). Surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater can provide an early warning signal of COVID-19 infections in a community. The capacity of the world's environmental microbiology and virology laboratories for SARS-CoV-2 RNA characterization in wastewater is increasing rapidly. However, there are no standardized protocols or harmonized quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC) procedures for SARS-CoV-2 wastewater surveillance. This paper is a technical review of factors that can cause false-positive and false-negative errors in the surveillance of SARS-CoV-2, culminating in recommended strategies that can be implemented to identify and mitigate these errors. Recommendations include stringent QA/QC measures, representative sampling approaches, effective virus concentration and efficient RNA extraction, amplification inhibition assessment, inclusion of sample processing controls, and considerations for RT-PCR assay selection and data interpretation. Clear data interpretation guidelines (e.g., determination of positive and negative samples) are critical, particularly when the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater is low. Corrective and confirmatory actions must be in place for inconclusive results or results diverging from current trends (e.g., initial onset or reemergence of COVID-19 in a community). It is also prudent to perform interlaboratory comparisons to ensure results' reliability and interpretability for prospective and retrospective analyses. The strategies that are recommended in this review aim to improve SARS-CoV-2 characterization and detection for wastewater surveillance applications. A silver lining of the COVID-19 pandemic is that the efficacy of wastewater surveillance continues to be demonstrated during this global crisis. In the future, wastewater should also play an important role in the surveillance of a range of other communicable diseases.

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This viewpoint paper explores the potential of genomics technology to provide accurate, rapid, and cost efficient observations of the marine environment. The use of such approaches in next generation marine monitoring programs will help achieve the goals of marine legislation implemented world-wide. Genomic methods can yield faster results from monitoring, easier and more reliable taxonomic identification, as well as quicker and better assessment of the environmental status of marine waters. A summary of genomic methods that are ready or show high potential for integration into existing monitoring programs is provided (e.g. qPCR, SNP based methods, DNA barcoding, microarrays, metagenetics, metagenomics, transcriptomics). These approaches are mapped to existing indicators and descriptors and a series of case studies is presented to assess the cost and added value of these molecular techniques in comparison with traditional monitoring systems. Finally, guidelines and recommendations are suggested for how such methods can enter marine monitoring programs in a standardized manner.